Jorge Lorenzo finished the day in sixth place on the timesheet’s with a best time of 1’55.828, +0.563s off the front. His teammate Rossi, who had a crash at turn eight on just his third lap, recovered to end the day in 8th with a 1’55.938 lap, +0.673s behind the leader Andrea Iannone.

Jorge Lorenzo:
“It’s been very difficult to get onto the pace today. We don’t exactly know what happened, but it looks like we need much more grip on the rear when we enter the corners. I think we are still very far from our limit. The track is not very grippy, especially on the entry of the corners and also the curbs are very slippery and bumpy, so the track conditions are a bit strange compared to last year”

Valentino Rossi:
“At the end today it was not so bad. I had a quite good pace, we worked a little bit on the bike and we improved the setting. Unfortunately I had a crash at the beginning of the session. Fortunately I was not injured, but I did have one less tyre so I had to work the whole day with two sets and I was not able to do the time attack at the end. The feeling is quite good for the first day, the lap times are not so bad and it looks like this year’s battle will be very hard because all the bikes and the riders are very strong. Tomorrow we have to continue to work on the bike. We don’t have a lot of new things, but we’ll work on the balance and the setting and will try to improve the lap time.”

Massimo Meregalli – Team Director:
“The plan today was to work on the settings for both Jorge and Vale and also to work on the braking to keep closing the gap to our competitors. Jorge worked hard with his crew from the beginning but was still looking for a comfortable pace and set up at the end of the session. Unfortunately Vale had a strange crash after just three laps going into turn eight and so we lost one set of tyres and some valuable time. Fortunately he was uninjured which is the most important thing. We are not completely satisfied at the end of today with our position but as always will work on solutions both tonight and in the morning to be ready to make improvements and step closer to the front.” (Yamaha MotoGP Team)